THE TRANSMIGRATION OF TIMOTHY ARCHER: Science Fiction, Fantasy or Realism? By David Hyde

In June 1981 Philip K. Dick was waiting to hear from his agent on acceptance of THE TRANSMIGRATION OF TIMOTHY ARCHER. His agent at the Scott Meredith Literary Agency, Russ Galen, had read the novel and commented:

You know, in your science fiction they drive things called flobbles and quibbles, and in this one they drive Hondas -- but it's still essentially a science fiction novel. Although I can't explain exactly how. 1.

So is the novel science fiction? Or fantasy? Or realism? The answer depends on how you define these terms. The main distinction between them is that science fiction, to be defined as such, proceeds from a basis of consensual possibility. For example, it is possible that mankind will develop a gravity drive and go on to the stars. It’s also possible that we will develop a time- machine or attain immortality. But it is not possible according to the consensus of Western thought that fairies will sprinkle one’s St. Bernard with magic dust and the dog will rise into the air and fly. Or, more to the point, that ancient Zoroastrian deities will take over a town and conduct a cosmic battle in and above it. Fantasy deals with the impossible. That’s why ghost stories are considered fantasies and why THE COSMIC PUPPETS is fantasy. Realism is all about the actual; the consensual world or Koinos Kosmos as PKD calls it. In this world the impossible doesn’t happen and the possible happens only along accepted scientific lines. To simplify the whole thing we can say that realism deals with the actual and probable whereas science fiction is about the possible and fantasy concerns the impossible. So, then, is THE TRANSMIGRATION OF TIMOTHY ARCHER science fiction or fantasy; or is it neither and instead straight realist fiction? The premise of THE TRANSMIGRATION OF TIMOTHY ARCHER is that ancient documents supposedly recently discovered in the Judean desert throw doubt upon the origins of Christianity. Is this actual, possible or impossible? Well, obviously the answer is that it is possible, ancient scrolls can be discovered at any time. Therefore TIMOTHY ARCHER is science fiction. If the Zadokite scrolls in the novel had actually already been discovered then TIMOTHY ARCHER would be a straight mainstream realist novel. If the premise had been that the Zadokite scrolls were guarded by a giant dragon then it would be fantasy. But what if they hadn’t been discovered, which they haven’t – the Zadokite scrolls are a fiction made up by Dick -- but the novel is written as if they had? What do we hold in our hands then as far as literary classifications? Do we have fake realism!? I think that Philip K. Dick, perhaps unconsciously but at least with some idea of what he was trying to do, was attempting to blur these categories into one. He said about THE TRANSMIGRATION OF TIMOTHY ARCHER:

It really was necessary for me to do the novel, as a projection of thematic material going back years and years and years in my writing, in stuff even as early as EYE IN THE SKY and TIME OUT OF JOINT. 2.

And, talking about TIME OUT OF JOINT he says:

PKD Otaku 9 - April 2003 1 What I was trying to do in that book was true, it is real, hence VALIS is a realist novel. But in account for the diversity of worlds that fact it is the opposite of a realist novel, it is an anti- people live in. I had not read Heraclitus realist novel because it doesn’t take the consensual then, I didn't know his concept of idios world as real for its basis but affirms this world as kosmos, the private world, versus koinos false. kosmos, which we all share. I didn't know To Dick VALIS is real but to the real world it is that the pre-Socratics had begun to discern fantasy, yet since it is possible that a man may be these things. […] It reminded me of the idea visited by God -- whole religions are based on this that Van Vogt had dealt with, of artificial -- then VALIS becomes science fiction. memory, as occurs in THE WORLD OF Fake reality… a notion that has shaken up the NULL-A where a person has false literary world. The academics call it post- memories implanted. 3. modernism. For Western literature it means abolishment of categories and a literature in which And, talking further on TIME OUT OF JOINT: fantasy, science fiction and realism are all blurred together. It was really a risky thing to do. But there All his life PKD wanted to write mainstream or again we are dealing with fake reality and I realist novels. He indeed wrote several but he had become obsessed with the idea of fake doubted the truth of reality itself, its realism, and reality. I was just fascinated with the idea. came to understand that a dubious reality cannot So that’s a pivotal book in terms of my be expressed as if it was real. Perhaps this is why career. It was my first hardcover sale, and it his mainstream novels are unconvincing. But the was the first novel in which the entire world obverse of this: that a true reality can be expressed is fake. You find yourself in it when you pick as if it was fake is exactly where PKD ended up in up the book and turn to page one. The novels like THE MAN IN THE HIGH CASTLE; world that you are reading about does not FLOW MY TEARS, THE POLICEMAN SAID and exist. And this was to be essentially the VALIS. premise of my entire corpus of writing, Which brings us full circle to the categorization really. 4. of THE TRANSMIGRATION OF TIMOTHY ARCHER. Is it science fiction, fantasy or realism? If we put this all together then we arrive at PKD’s And now we have our answer: it is all of them at notion of ‘fake reality.’ And to this we apply our once because with the advent of VALIS all category test. Is a fake reality real, possible or subsequent literature is post-modernist in nature. impossible? To which PKD forces us to answer – And a main tenet of post-modernism is that reality as no doubt he nebulously intended – we don’t itself is brought into question and the literary know, we don’t know, and no. category of realism is abolished. In a sense with The idea is not fantasy, that we can decide. It’s VALIS Philip K. Dick, continuing on from A. E. Van not impossible. As to actuality or possibility PKD in Vogt, is doing a scientific task: the advancement of the extended body of his work writes in such a way human knowledge. For with VALIS he brings out that the line blurring science fiction and realism is into the open that which he has only hinted at dissolved. before; the recognition that accepted literary The key to all this is, of course, Dick’s pink categories are redundant. Such artificialities as beam experiences. fantasy, science fiction and realism are According to Dick these actually happened, meaningless in other than superficial ways when were real. Which is fine except that now he writes a the nature of reality itself is not known. Categories novel based on these experiences: VALIS. So is collapse and the basis for a new understanding of VALIS science fiction, fantasy or realism? ‘reality’ is established. Dick, with the veracity of his pink beam Now if that accomplishment isn’t a landmark in experiences affirmed, does in VALIS something Western literature what is? that pretty much abolishes these categories. Despite the accidents in VALIS which are science 1. Twilight Zone, Vol. 2, No. 3, June 1982, John Boonstra, fictional, the essence of the novel is that VALIS is interviewer.

PKD Otaku 9 - April 2003 2 2. The Patchin Review, No. 5, Oct/Dec 1982, pp. 2-6. fix it. Lots of love, and send John a Xerox of the Interview by John Boonstra above. Say hello to Carol, and yes, I did mean it 3. The Dream Makers, p150, interview with PKD by Charles when I said I'd love to do a novel for Ace. Very Platt. much so! 4. In His Own Words, by Gregg Rickman, 9-30-81 Cordially, Philip K. Dick PKD & JOHN BRUNNER: 1968 [[What actually appeared as a blurb on the back cover of To: TERRY CARR The Jagged Orbit: "This big sprawling novel with its wealth of characters grips you rapidly. It is a superb November 11, 1968 work, plotted with amazing skill, and showing a magnetic artistry much above anything Brunner has previously Dear Terry, shown. This is a major epic, with a sparkling range of bizarre, convincing details of tomorrow, and if its climax Thank you for sending me JAGGED ORBIT by strikes you as strongly as it did me, you'll find this book John Brunner, whom I dearly love. It is a fine worth three times its price."] novel. Here is my reaction:

This big, sprawling novel with its wealth of From JOHN BRUNNER characters, its massive interacting parts, grips you rapidly. It is a superb work, 21st November 1968 created by a craftsman, plotted with amazing skill, and showing, finally, a Dear Phil, magnetic artistry much above anything Terry Carr sent me a photocopy of your very kind Brunner has previously shown. This is a comments on THE JAGGED ORBIT. I love you major epic; many characters move about in madly, too -- and not merely because of the its multi-faceted world, powerfully extravagant praise you heaped on that novel, but interlocking with one another, and the because of all the enjoyment you've given me in author has a firm grip -- and understanding the past (and will I hope continue to give me in the -- of all of them. In the climax lies a future) with your own outstanding novels. revelation, which I won't hint at, but if it There's been, in fact, such a surprising response strikes you as it did me, and it struck me to TJO that I've been emboldened to try something very hard, and as a complete surprise, you I've never done before, and which of all the people I will find this book worth three times its price. know in SF only Harlan, probably, could carry off No one should miss this strong, vigorous with aplomb. I've decided I'm going to do some novel with its sparkling range of bizarre, politicking in search of an award -- not because I convincing details of tomorrow, its crawling, especially hanker after a chunk of lucite or a busy bits of sheer inventive genius, its own rocketship on the mantel, but because it'd look huge inventory of terminology, some pretty on future book-jackets… puzzling, all exciting. I can't forget the Not, however, an award for THE JAGGED stunning world which Brunner has created, ORBIT! I drew one definite conclusion from what here, and neither will you. And you, like me, you said about that, apart from the obvious one that will probably read it in one long, fascinated you enjoyed the book a whole lot (which delights sitting; it's that good. For me it tended to me): said conclusion being that if you could say the dwindle a bit into mere politics toward the artistry of this was far above anything I'd previously final resolution, but the total impact remains shown, you hadn't read STAND ON ZANZIBAR. enormous. And the book is worthy material Terry knows, because I told him repeatedly in for a possible Hugo nomination. letters while I was working on TJO, that I wrote the book for him in the shadow of STAND ON Will the above serve? By the way -- pages 356, ZANZIBAR. That was the breakthrough to a new 357, 358 are printed in the wrong sequence; better plateau of achievement for me, to employ Damon's

PKD Otaku 9 - April 2003 3 terminology, and TJO was a work of consolidation Do you know him? Are you familiar with his thereafter. And I've recently heard comments from writing? various people, including some unlikely bedfellows, I really did enjoy TJO. It was a fine book. I had to the effect that it could be a winner for its year. an off experience while reading it…I got about one I'm sitting here not knowing whether to blush at third of the way through, and then I had a terrible my own arrogance or pat myself on the back for sense of loneliness, as if someone six thousand showing sound commercial sense at last, but miles away was talking to me, someone I dearly regardless of that, let me ask you a favor. enjoyed and liked, and here I was so far away, and Would you read STAND ON ZANZIBAR, and if reading this message from him which, it seemed to you like it would you tell a few people in places me at that moment, had been written for me alone. where a plug would do me good? And if you don't, It was a dreadful feeling, full of emptiness and would you tell me why not? I've already learned a despair, and an awful sense that no one closer to lot about the right and wrong ways to depict a me physically than John Brunner could or would future world from it, and I damned well ought to talk to me in the powerful and compelling manner learn much more. that the novel did. After which, I literally have the brashness to say By the way -- Terry wrote to me for what he called anything else, except give my regards to Nancy my "fulsome" remarks about TJO. Since fulsome and everyone else who knows me out your way. means "Offensive, disgusting, esp. offensively excessive or insincere," one of us ought to write to Best -- him and complain (or maybe he just doesn't know John what the word means). (I never seem to be able to communicate Terry. Evidently it will always be so.) What I mean is, coming right out in the open: if you As far as my own work goes, I have sold a story like it that much (and for Christ's sake if you don't, collection to Ace for a special, then an outline and 3 then don't perjure yourself!!!) turn in a Nebula sample chapters at $2,5000, then my latest novel to nomination for it, huh? Doubleday…so I have made three book-length sales in less than a month. Now I can pay off all [Brunner's Stand On Zanzibar won the 1969 Hugo my enormous debts. Award but not the Nebula.] Love to you, and please help me get a copy of STAND ON ZANZIBAR, so that I can nominate it.

To JOHN BRUNNER Cordially Philip K. Dick December 7, 1968 From: JOHN BRUNNER Dear John, Yes, I would be very glad to read STAND ON 12th December 1968 ZANZIBAR, but I'll need to know who published it, And, if a paperback, the number or identifying code, Dear Phil, so that I can order it by mail (where I live there is no A copy of STAND ON ZANZIBAR will be on its place to buy s-f books, either paperback or way to you shortly direct from Doubleday, hardcover). Obviously I will like it, if, as you say, compliments of the author. (It's a big heavy book; TJO is a spinoff from it, or something of that sort. signing one of my few remaining complimentary Or could you mail me a copy of it? Autographed? copies to you and mailing from London would have And, if I like it as much as I'm sure I will, I'll be been a trifle on the costly side, I'm afraid… Never very happy to nominate it for a Nebula award. And mind; here's a label you can paste on the flyleaf!) I will tell everyone I can think of to do so, too…or at What's happened to "fulsome", I think, must have least to read it and make up their own minds. Kris worked like this: the cliché term "fulsome flattery" Neville might be one who could do that; he and I (meaning the flattery was laid on with a shovel and tend to think the same as to the value of a sf novel. done for ulterior motives, hence insincere) survived when virtually all other uses of the word became

PKD Otaku 9 - April 2003 4 obsolete, and in consequence simple association of disastrous), and -- as you doubtless gathered from ideas as resulted in the term becoming innocuous, reading TJO -- there is something about taken to mean merely extravagantly complimentary contemporary America as a whole which makes my without overtones of offensiveness. It's always a spine crawl with apprehension. I can't help shame when a perfectly good word has its meaning wondering whether what induced that feeling you debased, but one can't legislate against it, I'm described (that someone 600 miles away was the afraid. only person who could talk to you) might not have Compare what's happened to words like been the fact that as an outsider I can perhaps see "discomfited" (routed, put to flight, overwhelmed) certain trends a little more clearly than native through confusion with "discomforted" -- or "scotch" residents, and isolate for the purposes of a novel a (we have scotched the snake, but not killed it) -- or number of them which are particularly pregnant "decimate" (kill one man in ten pour encourager les with foreboding. autres) now used to mean "kill all but one man in But, on the other hand, even under Governor (ha- ten", the next step below annihilation... ha) Reagan, the Bay Area remains one of my Congratulations on your excellent sales record favorite places and seems to me to be full of people lately; I look forward to seeing the new Doubleday with whom I have enormous mutual sympathy and item and the Ace Specials novel. an excellent degree of communication. I hope very By the way, you'll have received something from much that your fit of loneliness is over and that me recently about the Nebula nomination system -- you've rediscovered this fact for yourself. disregard it. I had visions (due I think partly to fever; I had a violent bout of the 'flu!) of SFWA Best -- members in general making the same mistake as John the guy in LA who got his October mailing late, and of course in the upshot this has proved impossible, with the circulation of the late-nominations ballot. LETTERS OF COMMENT Apologies. Meanwhile, I'm struggling under conditions of Paul Di Filippo: appalling difficulty (like not being able to use my study owing to the landlord's builders having taken …I loved PKD's letters. He reveals that he never out the window and part of the ceiling and wall) to lost a true sense of his own predicament: neither as complete the first draft of a novel (not SF, straight dire nor as spacey as others viewed him. Also glad contemporary with fantasy overtones) which Norton to get full scoop on famous incident of has commissioned, called THE DEVIL'S WORK. It "novelization" of Blade Runner. seems to be setting some kind of record for slow progress; only 228 pages in over two months. But Maurizio Nati: then I have to admit that the first 100-odd went through four drafts of their own before they were …There's a very interesting letter by Phil to David good enough for me to consider pushing on to the Hartwell with the outline of a new novel to write. He end… never wrote it, of course, but the plot is a real I was greatly touched by the description of your surprise (I'd never known about it): in line with the experience while reading THE JAGGED ORBIT. last things he wrote (religious & philosophical It's always been clear from your writing that you worries), but seemingly inspired to his first, have exceptional sensitivity to people and vanvogtian period (man trapped in a mad universe, situations indeed I suspect it may sometimes this time generated by a computer). And then become excessive, as it often does in people with Disneyland, Dante's Divina Commedia, Goethe's extremely vivid imaginations, and may induce the Faust & so on. phenomenon I tried to portray Paul Fidler as Alas, all of this remains unrealized, but it's a clear suffering in QUICKSAND: a sense that unrealized sign that he had not lost his brilliancy, and that he alternative possibilities are as "real" as what's hadn't the least intention to abandon sf. At least, actually happening, which must lead to terrible this is what I read in this letter. frustration, (especially if they are envisaged as

PKD Otaku 9 - April 2003 5 “Free Association: Pastrami, Sex and Death” His reluctant agreement was never tested, but it by Jon Carroll seemed to me an interesting idea for a prenup. San Francisco Chronicle October 4, 2002, p. Philip K. Dick had the look of a guy who might D18 have been mentioned in a few conversations like that. His eyes were slightly hooded, his mouth Alert readers may remember a column about the seemed to be just about to grin. Frank Sinatra for divine pastrami of Schwartz's of Montreal, only it's the people-from-Mars set. I had had a mental not called pastrami up there, it's called smoked picture of Dick as a bearded, unkempt wild man, meat. That column brought me an e-mail ode to sort of Allen Ginsberg plus Jerry Garcia with a little the wonders of pastrami from a friend of mine, plus Che Guevara thrown in. The photo made me think an invitation to break rye bread together. about him in a whole new light. She will have to remain anonymous, this friend, because she does a convincing imitation of a Book Reviews sedate woman of mature years, and I would not want to blow her cover. She recently retired from a Theodore Sturgeon: Venture Science Fiction job that involved neither white slavery, rum running September 1957, pp. 50-51 nor the writing of short stories about people living on Mars. Sturgeon says it has, and cites EYE IN THE But in earlier times, she ran with the local SKY, by Philip K. Dick (Ace no. 211, 255 pp, 35 science-fiction crowd, writers and editors mostly, cents) saying here is a heady jest, the first book and "sedate" was not a word that came up much. It since Fredric Brown's WHAT MAD UNIVERSE in was a wild time and a wild bunch and some people which, within the plot's stated and legitimate died and the rest carried memories. She invited me framework, anything -- but anything -- can happen. up to her house to sample the pastrami she had It is a book harmonious to this discussion of imported at great expense from Cantor's in Los revelation because it is full of revelations -- just how Angeles. (I regret to say that the Montreal variety is many, and of what kind, being a function of the eye superior, because the Quebecois do not fear fat, of the beholder and dependent upon its depth of resulting in smoked meat so juicy you think you function. have found a slice of heaven right here on earth. This glorious jape is, briefly, the story of an Make that 10 slices of heaven.) accident to a bevatron, in which eight people, in After lunch she brought out some snapshots of falling a considerable distance, pass through the her previous life, and there, in all his glory, was highly energized beam. They recover and return Philip K. Dick. He was standing in a backyard home, sharing the feeling that something is vaguely wearing a white T-shirt. He was perhaps 35 and amiss; but when an irreverence gets you a completely gorgeous; he looked like Jack Kerouac mysterious nip in the leg, and a lie brings a plague should have looked. of locust, the feeling gets less vague. From there it He looked like a home wrecker, and probably he takes off madly, in wild hyperbolic sweeps of was. In addition to being gorgeous, he was crazy, unabashed imagination. Two guys ride to heaven both good crazy and bad crazy. His spare and on an umbrella, and there is a house that eats deeply paranoid stories have inspired movies from people. Characters are killed, and restored for the "Blade Runner" to "Minority Report. " He was a trial next go-around to try it over. The earth comes to to his friends and an inspiration to a thousand an end more than once. How this happens is Mr. strangers. Dick's business -- and he makes it yours. And what As I looked at the snapshots, I was reminded of happens to you is worth eleven times the price and a story told by another friend of mine, a man who all your rereading time. Oh yes, you have to read it must also remain anonymous. over again. He said that before his parents got married, his The thinking, the thinking -- that's what's so mother made his father promise that, if she ever special about this book. It's great fun, mind you, a had the chance to sleep with Frank Sinatra, he donnybrook, a brawl. But it's the deft fun of a would raise no protest. She was entirely serious. shrewd observer, a good man with a telescope,

PKD Otaku 9 - April 2003 6 microscope, scalpel. Here's a man who knows uneven book, but much, much better than most of what he thinks about the witch-hunting aspects of the sf published recently. national security, about marriage and religion and paranoia and beer, about whether or not cows James Colvin: New Worlds no. 163 (June should wear trousers in public, and the machine 1966), p. 144 age, and race and Communism. If you want to see the workings of the lay mind that guards and Philip K. Dick's The Crack In Space (Ace, 40c) is defends Science from us, read as a fable the very disappointing Dick indeed. It's hard to believe guardianship and defense of the particular Deity that this is the author of The Three Stigmata of herein. Palmer Eldrich (Cape 21s). The world is And if it appears to you, as it did to Sturgeon, that overcrowded, large sections of the population are Dick presents some of these things in extreme being put into suspended animation, a strange terms, think it over the next day. You may find parallel Earth is discovered through a "crack in yourself, too, granting the author the extremities, space", plans are afoot to shift the overflow there -- the occasional black-and-white characterizations, but the world is already populated by a "Peking and even the incredible unmasking of the man" civilization who decide they want to invade unbelievably villainous villain at the end; he has a our earth. story to tell and a point to make, and like the man who was asked why he never peeled them, he can answer, "When I eats a banana I eats it, I don't "It's Philip Dick's World, We Only Live In It" mess with it." By Laura Miller And so, phil k dixi, which means, I like it and that's all I have to say. New York Times Book Review Nov 24, 2002 p. 39 Theodore Sturgeon: Venture Science Fiction May 1958, p. 58 Predicting the future is not a risky line of work. Whether you are a supermarket tabloid psychic, the leader of a doomsday cult or an expert in a think [The Variable Man and Other Stories] BUY IT - for tank, whether you predict the divorce of a movie Second Variety, a marvelous concept handled with star, the end of the world or merely the end of vividness and economy. The others, excellent to history, acolytes and book publishers will be good. The title story, killed dead by clumsiness. remarkably forgiving if you get it totally wrong. Getting it right is another matter entirely. The James Colvin: New Worlds no. 160 (March year 1984 has come and gone, and George 1966), p. 157 Orwell's 1949 novel remains, as high school students are taught every year, a powerful I believe that a long article on Philip K. Dick is in cautionary tale about the dangers of totalitarian preparation, too, so I will only briefly recommend an society. But no matter what critics of law sf author who has appeared far too infrequently in enforcement officials may say, we aren't currently this country. Try Dr. Bloodmoney (Or How We Got struggling under Big Brother's boot. Where is the Along After The Bomb) (Ace, 40c), which utilizes powerful cautionary fiction about the society we did many of the standard devises of an sf story to make wind up living in? Those with a robust tolerance for a number of satirical digs at current institutions and dislocation, for the vertiginous sensation of reality kinds of people. The 'Hugo' winning The Man in disintegrating underfoot and for the occasional the High Castle (Popular Library, 50c) studies an streak of slapdash prose can find it in the work of America subjugated by Japan and Germany who Philip K. Dick. are victors in a World War II that went their way. A writer who pounded out dozens of novels and The Three Stigmata of Palmer Eldrich (Doubleday, scores of stories in California between the 1950's $4.95) takes another dig at the American Way of and his death in 1982, Dick has his share of Life but also questions the nature of reality. champions, ranging from rock musicians to French Satirical, philosophical, slightly cranky, this is an postmodernists. Since his best work was published

PKD Otaku 9 - April 2003 7 as pulp science fiction, they've had their hands full Dickian devices and themes - implanted just trying to win him a little credibility. Meanwhile, memories, commodified identities, simulacra - almost unremarked, Dick's sensibility has seeped haunt contemporary literary fiction as well. The wide and deep into contemporary life. naming of years after corporate sponsors in David At its best, Dick's fiction captures the Foster Wallace's Infinite Jest; the downtrodden, depredations of what he called, in his great 1965 stigmatized souls in George Saunders's futuristic novel The Three Stigmata of Palmer Eldritch, "the short stories, with their degrading theme park jobs; evil, negative trinity of alienation, blurred reality and the dream worlds Haruki Murakami's characters despair" embodied in the book's title character. tumble into and out of - all partake of Dick's Dick described the two central questions posed by peculiar mixture of wrenched ontology and his writing as "What is human?" and "What is underdog sympathies. real?," though he never quite nailed down an Of course these writers could as easily have answer to the latter. Humanity, he felt, was distilled been inspired by the world around them as by in kindness, compassion, empathy - the only way to Dick's stories and novels; a great speculative writer fend off Eldritch's evil trinity. always extrapolates from the material at hand. The signature moments in Dick's fiction occur What's striking is how early Dick zeroed in on those when a character's seemingly stable reality turns ideas. In 1968 (1968!) he opened the novel Do inside out, revealing itself to be false. A man Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? with a husband discovers that he's not a human being but a and wife bickering over the proper use of their sophisticated robot. A television star finds himself in "Penfield mood organs," gizmos that allow them to an alternate world where he's literally nobody; fine-tune their personalities. "My schedule for today there's no record of his existence. An ordinary guy lists a six-hour self-- accusatory depression," the is told that the memory and identity he's had all his wife announces, much to her husband's life were actually implanted not long ago and that annoyance. He suggests she set the mood organ to he's really another man altogether. A man living in 888, "the desire to watch TV, no matter what's on a sweet 1950's small town realizes that it is entirely it." artificial. Aldous Huxley used the idea of chemical mood If some of those scenarios sound familiar, it's control even earlier, in Brave New World, but Dick not surprising; filmmakers have based such movies took speculative fiction's rarefied thought as Blade Runner, Total Recall and Minority Report experiments and integrated them into the humble on Dick's fiction. But acknowledged adaptations fabric of everyday life. As weird as his Work can be, aren't the only cinematic manifestations of Dick's it's always grounded in the lives of Willy obsessions. The Truman Show bears a suspicious Lomanesque working stiffs - late on the rent, resemblance to the novel Time Out of Joint, and nagged by their wives and just trying to get by. In some of the most arresting independent films of his own life, Dick alternated between the 1950's recent years involve characters whose realities ideal of a nuclear family and a freer but chaotic collapse, stutter or slip from their fingers. Perhaps demimonde; that tension between mid-century the writer-director Christopher Nolan never thought suburbia and our liberationist impulses preoccupies of Dick while creating Memento, but his hero's us still. Like Dick's characters, we take comfort in struggle to function with almost no short-term vicarious glamour. The bored and miserable Mars memory is quintessentially Dickian. The muddied colonists in Stigmata spend all their time playing boundaries between fantasy and fact in Mulholland with Barbie-like dolls. Using a drug called Can-D, Drive, the looped fate in the underrated Donnie they can transport themselves into the dolls and Darko, the easy access sought to some other, briefly become gorgeous young people who drive better identity in Being John Malkovich all constitute Jaguars, revel in seaside trysts and otherwise territory that Dick knew well. The hugely popular savor a life in which it's "always Saturday." movie The Matrix is classic Dick without actually The controlling powers in Dick's futuristic worlds being based on one of his works, and, really, who is are more often huge corporations than Freddy Krueger of the Nightmare on Elm Street governments. Stigmata is essentially the story of a films if not a cruder manifestation of the ubiquitous cosmic battle for market share; in Ubik, and demonic Palmer Eldritch? metaphysical salvation comes in a spray can.

PKD Otaku 9 - April 2003 8 Dick's most distinctive contribution to the literature imaginative coherence of those other writers. His of paranoia was his refusal of the conspiracy corporate future came from a common pool created theorist's secret comfort: better a world by troubled left-wingers Pohl and Kornbluth (The manipulated by sinister agents than a universe Space Merchants, 1953) or Alfred Bester (The governed by no intelligence at all. The great terror Demolished Man, 1953). His Mars is the harsh but of Dick's books is entropy - the cold, dusty, random habitable planet of Leigh Brackett (Queen of the creep of decay and disorder, blindly devouring each Martian Catacombs, 1949) or Ray Bradbury (The insignificant human life. Anyone on the bad side of Martian Chronicles, 1950). His style and characters the free market can recognize this combination of are indistinguishable from those of a dozen other pervasive power and utter mindlessness. snappy pulpsters. Even his questioning of the Remember what the prophet said: kindness is our fundamentals of identity and reality is largely only hope. unoriginal, preceded by the work of the less prolific but perhaps more profound Charles Harness, who KARA-BAKOS: Documents of Questionable Reality wrote stories such as "Time Trap", "The Paradox since 1974 Men" and "The Rose" in the 50s. So how has Dick emerged as today's best- Title: Schwer Liegt die Heuschreuke known and admired US SF writer? It's hard to judge Author: Abendsen, Hawthorne from this book (which was promoted Publisher: Konig Verlag 1974 enthusiastically by me and many others when it first Condition: Excellent appeared). Palmer Eldritch's three stigmata are his Features: None artificial arm, steel teeth and electronic eyes. He is a merchant adventurer lately returned with Abendsen's most famous novel, Schwer Leigt die something valuable from Proxima Centauri to a Heuschreuke (The Grasshopper Lies Heavy) deals globally overheated Earth. The UN (a regulatory primarily with a Nebenwelt (parallel-world) wherein body replacing government as such) is protecting the Allies defeated the Axis at the close of the him like a state secret. Second World War. Abendsen has since gone Corporate boss Leo Bulero is the head of the missing from his Rocky Mountain compound, Perky Pat empire, which employs "precog" presumably abducted by authorities, which has telepaths to read the future and design business sent the price of this text spiraling. We refuse to strategy. Bulero's business is the Barbie and Ken- play the Murder-Game so many other booksellers type Perky Pat dolls and accessories used by seem to find no compunction in playing; our prices planetary colonists to ease their misery and remind will not alter due to speculation and slander. them of a materially idyllic Earth. In conjunction with the Perky Pat toys, colonists chew Can-D, an illegal drug which allows them to imagine themselves as “A Difficult Gift” by Michael Moorcock the main characters in the Perky Pat world. The Guardian March 15, 2003 Bulero's company secretly controls Can-D and publicly sells endless accessories for the miniature Next year SF celebrates a fairly significant twosome. anniversary. It will be 40 years since JG Ballard Barney Mayerson, a high-ranking precog, published The Terminal Beach, Brian Aldiss predicts that Bulero will murder Eldritch, who has published Greybeard, William Burroughs published discovered a drug more attractive and powerful Naked Lunch in the UK, I took over New Worlds than Can-D. In confronting Eldritch, hoping to kill magazine and Philip K Dick published The Three him, Bulero is plunged into powerfully realistic Stigmata of Palmer Eldritch. It was a watershed hallucinatory worlds clearly controlled by his bionic year, if you like, when SF rediscovered its visionary rival. Gradually he suspects that his antagonist is roots and began creating new conventions which not only God and the devil, but that he and rejected both modernism and American pulp everyone else is an aspect of Eldritch. The material traditions. world becomes optional. What is real? Can Eldritch Perhaps best representing that cusp, Dick's be resisted? Are our souls our own? It is to Dick's work only rarely achieved the stylistic and credit that as his hasty standard English and

PKD Otaku 9 - April 2003 9 cardboard characters disintegrate in his wake, we - Roy Menarini, "La catastrofe come luogo di are still left with sturdy philosophical questions. fantasia: Visibilità, tecnologia e rappresentazione Dick's speed-enhanced gift was to capture the storica tra Blade Runner e Titanic" illusion sometimes encountered by the deadline- - Fabrizio Denunzio, "Una vita indignata: conscious hack, hyped on adrenaline, playing with Meditazioni sulla rivolta dei replicanti in Blade transcendental notions that creator and creations, Runner" illusions and reality are one. As with hallucinogens, - Gianni Sibilla, "La macchina narrativa di Blade the condition can cause obsession and psychosis, Runner: Dal romanzo al Director's Cut" a distinct sense that the book is writing you. You - Marco Bertolino, "Fenomenologia della visione: become merely a medium. Common sense usually Blade Runner e il cinema di Ridley Scott" brings you back to shared reality. But in the case of - Gian Paolo Caprettini, "Il sequestro delle Dick or L Ron Hubbard, inventor of Scientology, the emozioni: Da Philip K. Dick a Blade Runner" experience formed the basis of a rough and ready - Salvatore Proietti, "Philip K. Dick, le barriere di belief system resembling Buddhism or Blade Runner e I superuomini che non sanno Manichaeism. Does the mind control reality? Do volare" good and evil emanate from the same source? - Marisa Merlos, "Il mito dell'automa: Da Ma gli What do we worship and why? androidi sognano pecore elettriche? a Blade As he followed these themes, Dick's novels Runner" (tr. Katia Ciccuti) became increasingly incoherent and, for me, - Philip K. Dick, "Tempi di magia: Lettere a Kristin scarcely readable. Hacking out book after book, he Hummel" [actually, I am responsibile for alerting gave himself no time to discover a more Bertetti about the letters published in idiosyncratic structure or style, the search for which philipkdick.com] characterized the so-called SF New Wave and - Carlos Scolari, "Come lacrime nella pioggia acida: gave us sophisticated American visionaries such as Transtestualità, semiosi e postmodernismo nella Thomas M Disch, John Sladek and Samuel R Los Angeles del 2019" Delany. - Paolo Bertetti, "Da Los Angeles a Everytown e The Three Stigmata of Palmer Eldritch ends ritorno: Immagini della città futura" with a question about identity. Unfortunately, I had - Domenico Gallo, "Avvampando gli angeli caddero: to leaf back through the book before I could Blade Runner, Philip K. Dick e il cyberpunk" understand the question because the characters - Carlos Pérez Rasetti, "Epistemologia per sbirri" involved were so hard to tell apart. It could be true, (tr. Katia Ciccuti) Daniele Barbieri, "Androidi e as Dick so frequently suggested, that we are all detective su carta" actors playing out the dream of a great director in - Paolo Bertetti and Carlos Scolari, eds. "Non the sky. In this case, given the illusion of free will, I cercano killer nelle inserzioni sui giornali": Blade think I'd rather be in the movie. Runner nei libri e nelle recensioni della stampa specializzata e dei giornali", [excerpts from reviews More News from Italy and criticism in Italian, English, French, and Spanish] (tr. from Spanish Katia Ciccuti, from Salvatore Proietti sent along the following French and English Roberto Marro) information on a recent book: - Bibliography by Paolo Bertetti with Salvatore Proietti Paolo Bertetti & Carlos Scolari, eds. Lo sguardo - Biblio. of web sites by Carlos Scolari degli angeli: Intorno e oltre Blade Runner. Turin: Testo & Immagine, 2002. [Contributors are American (Cohen), Argentinian (Merlos, Rasetti), Spanish (Scolari), as well as Contents: Italian.] - Alain Cohen, "Blade Runner: Una critica cinematografica del giudizio postmoderno" (tr. Salvatore's "Philip K. Dick Arrives in Italy" in Otaku Carla Malerba e Luca Magnani) #8 originally appeared in English in the journal - Silvio Alovisio, "L'occhio scuro degli Eighties: Science-Fiction Studies, March 2002, pp. 142-44. Alterità e visione in Blade Runner e The Thing"

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